Firstly, I found it really cute that Stephen introduced himself onto the stage, doy. He looked really cute, too, he had longer hair than he does on the Hello Ladies poster, and a bit of facial hair, basically looks just like he does on An Idiot Abroad. It’s funny because the poster was obviously meant to make him look geeky and gangly, but really, he’s very dashing.

The first thing he did was say he was surprised nobody wanted to take pictures of him. So then we did! Theatre rules be damned. And he started posing for those people taking pics.

He talked about himself and the hardships he’s been though. :C It was excellently timed comedy based on how much of a loser he is. He even
pulled a very Wheatley-esque thing where he said “Some women have called me stingy. I wouldn’t say i am - I’m not rich. If I was, I wouldn’t be here trying to entertain you! (offhand) Scum. (correcting himself) No! No, I mean—” and it was really cute.

He demonstrated how he’s actually too tall to fit through most standard door frames, meaning it’s very hard to storm out after an argument, and that he spends a lot of time trying to seem smaller by leaning on things or just BEING IN THE DISTANCE

He also referred to The Office and his minor fame surrounding it, but just referred to Ricky as “You Know Who”, ha ha. He had a projector  screen, where he showed us the photo of himself in the newspaper with his head cut off the top. His reperssed anger over it was brilliant. And
whenever he turned around so I couldn’t see his expression and lips moving, it was like SUDDENLY WHEATLEY WAS THERE, but that was just weird.

There was a bit of gossip in the Daily Mail about him once, criticising his dancing skills in a club! They said “To put it kindly, it was like watching a stork hop about on stilts.” He said “putting it kindly?! Putting it kindly in the Daily Mail would be saying ‘his dancing was awful, but at least it kept my mind off the immigrants.’”

There was a great bit where he described being at Trafalgar Square on new year’s Eve, having a cute girl come up to him, and she asked if
he’d be sticking around for a while. When he said yes, she replied “Good, because my friends have arranged to meet back at you.” Oh god,
his delivery. Also he wore a Blue Peter badge throughout.

There was a hilarious and lengthy bit about Venn Diagrams. Yes, he made Venn Diagrams funny.

Then he went onto his West Country VHS porn tapes and how hard they were to procure. And difficult to get out of the tape machine in a hurry. He acted out… a lot of sexual positions. A lot. Half the show was basically him showing us how he tries to manage with a girl who’s half his height.

Text message humour. “Bad news, your son has died. Soz! :(“

He DID call us, collectively, “luv” at one point.

He described being the bottom while a woman was on top being like “riding a magic pony”. I guess because it’s so elevated. Also, he really
hates cunningulus. And told us so. Through mime. I’m ashamed to say that once he said that, I actually thought “Oh, well that’s jossed that one fanfic and all the fanart it got.” DERP.

After enacting all these sexual positions for about half an hour, he says “Did you think the show was going to be classier than this? So did I, if I’m honest.”

He also very enthusiastically used the phrase “Whale of a time!” and I like DIED

On a woman telling really boring anecdotes: “If that story was making its way out of my head, my brain would be saying, ‘Don’t go out there!
There’s PEOPLE out there!’”

And then he ended with a sketch in the style of a high school GCSE drama play, complete with extensive blackouts and noisy moving chairs
(even when the chairs DIDN’T ACTUALLY GO ANYWHERE) wherein his character got a girl pregnant and didn’t even care, then bullied a gay kid because “BULLYING IS WRONG AND I REALISE THAT NOW”. Also when the girl was giving birth, he ran offstage to get the baby ‘prop’, saying “I didn’t have time to get a baby doll for the prop, so I just grabbed the first thing on my way out of the house”, and comes back. With a BAFTA.

He picked me to be the volunteer in this scene. But when I went to approach the stage, some other girl just jumped up there before I could make it and... I had to sit down again. I was kind of really disappointed. You don't get to act scenes with Stephen Merchant in front of a theatre every day...

“It’s hard to be gay because of prejudice. And AIDS.”

Oh my god he was just a wonderful performer, he stood so well on his own, his delivery was second to none, and the humour itself was just the right blend of abrasively sarcastic and pitifully self-degrading. I’m really glad he pulled it off so well, it kind of proved his ability to be a solo performer at last, with flying colours. Great guy, great show.